He Ain't Heavy
by pdragon76
Summary: A bronchial Dean stumbles across a job that brings up more between the boys than your average lugey. Warning for language.  Spoilers through AHBL2, references to BUaBS


**Disclaimer: All things Supernatural belong to Kripke not me (Rinse & Repeat)**

**A/N: -weeps- This is late. And it was so hard to write. It made my fingers BLEED. I hope it's easier to read than it was to write. I really, really do. Crazy mad props to kimonkey7 for de-Aussification and general ass-kickery where needed. Remaining niggles, wtf's and humdingers are mine, all mine. Inspired by challenge #15 at found fic spn over on lj**

* * *

It was like pulling teeth. Without the novacaine. 

Dean had been fighting it for two weeks, and Sam had kept his mouth shut. He hadn't said anything about the trail of balled up tissues or the sensational snoring or the incredibly foul mood. But dude, enough was enough. Not to say there hadn't been highlights – earlier that week the bug had finally migrated South, spent two glorious laryngitic days depriving him of his voice. And God, _years_ of material coming due after his feverish and disoriented 2am attempt to piss in the corner of the motel room. Sam had rolled out of bed slower for _demons._

Dean was the master of lugey gymnastics at the peak of his health. Add a dose of bronchitis, and suddenly a triple sneeze at the wheel of the Impala warranted a hasty retreat to the gravel shoulder. Sam's initial assessment of the situation was that a call to the Center for Disease Control was indicated. Maybe some guys in HAZMAT suits.

Dean passed the sleeve of his jacket over the steering wheel and turned his attention to his snot covered palm. From where he sat, Sam could see a cursory wipe down the jean leg was out of the question. Half the contents of his brother's head seemed to be _dangling _between his fingers.

After a quick perusal of the seat between them and the floor of the Impala, Dean seemed to come to a decision and made a miniscule move with the offending hand toward his brother.

Sam flattened against the passenger door, gave Dean the jazz hands.

"Oh, no no no. Don't even think about it."

Dean motioned to the dash and the lugey bungied beneath his palm with a precarious tenacity. Sam blinked at Dean in speechless disgust.

"What? I was going for the glovebox," Dean lied. He jutted his chin at the dash. "See if we got any tissues in there."

Sam reached out to punch it open and paused.

"Just out of interest, if there _are_ any tissues in here, would that actually _stop _you from doing the two finger nose-blow directly onto the sidewalk?"

"Hey," Dean snapped, "that is for snot emergencies only. You know that. I don't just whip that baby out for a trickle. I gotta be in some serious trouble."

Sam pointed at his hand. "Dean, seriously. You need antibiotics, man. That is just…_wrong._"

Dean glanced at the disaster in his hand.

"Yeah, well the laws of physics say we're on the clock here, so…" He waggled a finger at the glovebox.

Sam came up empty, so Dean swung his hand back across and out the window, flicked vigorously and scraped his palm off on the side window. The stuff was as stubborn as its host, and by the time he retracted his arm even Sam was pitching in with the incredulous laughter.

Sam shook his head as Dean cranked the window up to half mast.

"Dude, that has _got _to be the most disgusting thing you've done this week."

Dean elbowed the door frame, gave Sam an exaggerated wink.

"It's only Tuesday, Sammy. Might have your chips down a little early there."

Dean wiped his palm down his jeans, snorted back an audibly impressive snot ball and sent it out the window. Sam gave him a long, faintly nauseated stare as Dean guided the Impala back onto the blacktop and glanced right, did a double take at Sam's disgusted expression.

"What?" he grunted defensively.

Sam raised his eyebrows, lids fluttering. "I can't believe women find you attractive."

Dean hit the gas. "Women think I'm adorable."

"Whatever. Enough's enough, man. You're goin' to a doctor."

* * *

The doctor was running late. 

By the time the receptionist called his name and motioned him down the hallway, Dean had already orchestrated two ill-advised escape attempts. Out in the lot, Sam had uncrossed his arms and come off the hood of the Impala, sent him straight back in both times. It was the look that did it. Sometimes, and it wasn't very often, but _sometimes_, you didn't fuck around with Sam.

Dr. Mark Holland was a man of few words, which suited Dean fine. He wasn't there for the conversation. He jammed a thermometer between Dean's lips and motioned vaguely as he pulled his stool up and perched in front of him, stethoscope at the ready.

"Shirt."

Dean undid his buttons but left it on. If the shirt came off, they were going to have a conversation about what was underneath, and he had no interest in discussing his war wounds with this guy. If his reluctance to disrobe seemed strange, the doctor gave no indication.

"Deep breath."

Dean obliged, grimaced over the top of the guy's bowed head because he knew it sounded bad. He could feel it all grumbling around in there like liquid lead. He felt lousy.

"Again."

The doctor opened Dean's shirt and if he hadn't seen the jagged scar on his left shoulder, then he was blind. He didn't say anything. Instead, he rolled back around behind Dean's shoulder, raised the hairs a little on the back of Dean's neck. Dean stamped down on his instinctive urge to turn, get the guy in his line of sight. _You're poorly socialized_, Sam said inside his head, and he bit back a laugh.

"What line of work did you say you're in?" The doctor was peering into his ear.

Dean knew he'd seen the other scar right there – behind his ear – a crescent shaped gouge back into his hairline from a run-in with a swung saucepan a couple of years back. Guy was getting a decent look at the catalogue and for some reason he couldn't put his finger on, it pissed Dean off.

"I didn't." He managed to keep most of the animosity out of his voice. _Keep it nice, Dean. Just…none of your business, dude. _

"Okay." Holland took the hint. "That shoulder give you any trouble? Pins and needles, numb fingers? Anything like that?"

Dean cleared his throat and it turned into a hacking cough that nearly sent the thermometer clean out of his mouth.

"Listen," he said finally, "I don't mean to be rude or anything, but if you can just write me a scrip for the snot, I can get outta your hair."

The doctor gave him a searching look, and Dean returned it with all the bored, matter-of-fact he could muster.

Holland nodded, reached out and took the thermometer from Dean's mouth.

"You taking anything for this temperature?"

Dean shook his head. "Nope."

The doctor threw a box of Tylenol at him and Dean caught it against his chest.

"Start now. Three every four hours. Can you get any time off work?"

Dean laughed out loud, cut it short when the doctor looked up at him, pen poised over the prescription pad. Dean imagined handing it over to Sam. _Doc gave me the rest of the week off. You're on your own, Tinkerbell._

"Not really. It's not a 9 to 5 kinda gig."

The doctor was scrawling on another pad.

"Yeah, I bet," he said without looking up. "Any allergies I need to know about?"

"Besides doctors? No."

"That's funny," he said, in a voice that suggested it wasn't. "I'm writing you a five day course and a repeat – fill 'em both. You'll need it. Plenty of fluids. Bedrest."

He handed Dean the scrip, along with another paper, business card attached. Dean cocked an eyebrow at him.

"What's this?"

"Referral. Rod Tekesky. Physical therapist. If you wanna get that shoulder looked at."

Dean narrowed his eyes at the guy, and the doctor held up two acquiescent hands.

"Hey kid, I don't give a shit if you call him or not. But he's here in the building, and he's good. I know how these _out-of-hours_ jobs can be. I'm assuming a full range of movement comes in handy."

The lights flickered as Dean stood up and he frowned at the ceiling.

"You got a problem with your lights?"

"What? Oh yeah. Do me a favor, don't mention it to Kelly out there on reception. Kid's got it in her head we're haunted. Every time she gets freaked out I gotta stay back and lock up with her and I gotta tell you, these days are long enough as it is."

"Haunted, huh? Why would she think that?"

The doctor shrugged.

"Local ghost story. Guy named Cantem died here a few back. Word around town is that he hasn't exactly shuffled off the mortal coil." He twirled a finger generally at the ceiling. "This is supposedly one of his local hang-outs."

"Yeah?" Dean inserted the requisite amount of chuckle into his voice. "He's got more than one?"

"So they say. Here and the garage over on Eighth. He used to own the place."

"You ever seen him?"

The doctor laughed, shook his head. "What are you kidding?"

Dean nodded, returned the chuckle with one of his own. Y_eah, dude, your ghost problem is hilarious. Because my fee's gonna make your bill look like an add on sale at a two buck shop. God, we're gonna charge you by the __**hour.**_

_**

* * *

**_"We're not charging him, Dean." 

Dean elbowed up on the couch, looked over at the backrest to where Sam sat at the motel room table.

"Dude, he just hung me out to dry to the tune of fifty bucks _plus _antibiotics. Guy shoulda been wearin' a fuckin' mask."

"He didn't hire us! You found it. By accident. You can't charge him to get rid of something he doesn't even know he has."

"Actually, yes we can, Tinkerbell."

Sam stiffened at the name. "God, Dean, it's been a whole month. When are you gonna drop that?'

"Dude, when you're six foot four and you think a fucking sapling is gonna get you from the ground floor to a second storey window? I get to call you Tinkerbell. There's no statute of limitations on shit slinging. So let's hear it, _Tink,_ what've you got on our Cantem guy?"

Sam rose up from his chair, swung a leg over the back of it and crossed to the kitchenette. He folded his arms and leaned back against the counter.

"'Okay, so Sean and Nathan Cantem owned Cantem Cars on Eighth Street for like ten years. Then six years ago, Sean decides he's had enough of the small town life, he's gonna sell his share of the business to his brother and make him the sole owner, then take off to the East Coast with Marilyn."

"Wife?"

"Bingo. So the day the deal goes through, the boys head out for one last hurrah at the local. Sean's taking off the next day. They drink at the bar in town until 8pm, play some pool, witnesses say they both look happy, nothing out of the ordinary. Then they leave. That's the last time anyone sees Nathan Cantem. He disappears – no one's seen him or his car since that night. An hour and a half later, Sean stumbles into the clinic – same one we were at today - gunshot wound to the chest. The only guy at the clinic at that time of night was some dude catching up on paperwork and he calls the paramedics but the guy's dead by the time they get there."

Dean blew his nose, alerted any ships in the near vicinity to imminent shorelines. "Okay, so we got a name on this guy that was at the clinic? He still around?"

"Yeah, name's Rodney Tekesky."

Dean made a surprised noise, sat up and swung his legs off the couch.

"What?"

Sam frowned at him as he crossed to the table, rifled through the bills and scrips from the doctor surgery. He found the business card, fished his cell out of his pocket and started dialing.

"Dean, what?"

He handed Sam the card. "I'm making an appointment."

* * *

"So how did you get this guy's business card?" 

Sam was angled against the passenger door, head cocked. It was his primary position for riding Dean's ass 'til he cracked.

_Great. Here we go. _

"Doctor gave it to me."

"Yeah, I gathered that – why?"

Dean rustled up a wet, rumbling cough. Let it draw out a little longer than was necessary. _Play the sick angle. Don't let him get a foothold_.

"I dunno. He saw my shoulder and he said I might wanna have this guy take a look at it."

Sam shook his head, eyebrows arching. "Your shoulder's bugging you?"

"No."

"So the doctor referred you to a physiotherapist because your shoulder's _fine_." He played the last word like he was channeling a schoolmarm.

"Looks like."

"Dean, if you're in pain, why don't you just say something?"

Dean elbowed the window frame and palmed his forehead. _I am far too sick for this shit._

"Cause there's nothing to say, Sam. Jesus, back off. He saw the scar and he asked me about it. The shoulder's fine. You're a lousy shot, what can I say?"

"Oh, we goin' for the sucker punch now?"

_Fine, Sammy. You wanna throw down, let's throw down. _

"I don't think we wanna get into a discussion about cheap shots and Duluth, do we Sam?"

Sam stared at the side of his head until Dean thought maybe he might leave a hole there. Then he glared at the windshield. _Christ, Sam. Crack it, why don't you._

"You know, all this time you never wanted to talk about it – why don't you just come out and say it."

"Oh, God. What now? Say what?"

"You resent me."

Dean burst out laughing. He paused, glanced sideways at Sam, and threw back his head, let out another peal of laughter. Sam frowned at him in frustrated confusion.

"What's so funny?"

"Dude – you _shot_ me. I spent two weeks doin' my shoelaces up with one fuckin' hand. I turn my arm like this?" He took his left hand off the wheel and twisted through the elbow, ran his thumb across the tips of his fingers. "I got nothin' in my fingers. Completely numb. Do I resent you? Of course I fuckin' resent you."

Sam bit his thumbnail. "I knew it. And that's funny how?"

Dean rubbed his eyebrow, tilted his chin to look at his brother, then back at the road. He felt a clutch of amused pity for Sam sitting there, wracked with guilt, about to rip his fucking thumbnail clean off his hand.

"Cause it doesn't matter, Sam. You're my brother. The deal is, I got your back. And I do, man. I got it. But you pop a cap in my ass, I'm allowed to be pissy about it. Demon or no demon. "

He smoothed his palm over the steering wheel, turned the Impala onto the highway.

"I mean Jesus, Sam – I gotta like you twenty-four seven?"

* * *

Rod lifted Dean's elbow, paused when he got a wince out of him up level with his shoulder. 

"You've lost a little range there but it's really not too bad. Honestly, I don't know if any PT's gonna make a difference. I can give you some exercises. Are you gonna do them?"

"Nope." No point lying. The guy seemed like a straight shooter and in Dean's experience, they liked it the way they gave it.

"So how did this happen?"

Dean went with the truth. It was always easier that way.

"Uh, hunting accident."

Rod pointed at his chest. "And the rest? This is where you tell me you're accident-prone, right?"

Dean passed a hand over his chest, rubbed his jaw. _This is why you keep the damn shirt on, genius._ "Car accident a while back. I got banged up pretty good."

Rod raised his eyebrows. "I'll say. What'd you hit, a chainsaw?'

Dean huffed off a laugh, scratched the back of his head. "Felt like it."

"Friend?"

"Hmm?"

"The hunting accident."

'Uh, no. Brother."

"Huh. That's gotta sting."

"Actually, I think it's worse for him."

"You guys still talk?"

Dean tipped his temple towards the hallway. "He's in the waiting room. We kinda work together."

"You kicked his ass, though. Right?"

Dean barked off a surprised laugh, shook his head. As far as he could, sitting there half naked being poked and prodded, he kinda liked this guy.

"No, man. It was an accident. Whattaya gonna do?"

"You know, it makes me wonder, that kinda thing."

"How so?"

And Rod gave up the whole story, right there. All Dean had to do was sit there and listen, feel vaguely bad that it was the real reason he was there. To pull out the detail of some guy bleeding to death in Rod Tekesky's arms on the reception floor.

"His own brother, you know. Outta the blue. And the last thing he says to me? He says, '_you gotta find Nathan. Kid's gonna do something stupid.'_ " Rod clipped off a humorless laugh at the memory. " '_Kid's gonna do something stupid.'_ You believe that?"

Dean thought about the blacktop tipping and weaving in front of him that night on the road out of Duluth. Every bit of him screaming to lay down and keep going, all at once. Yeah. He believed it.

Rod was talking again.

"You know, a friend does something like that, you got yourself some choices to make. There are a hundred ways you can get some distance between you and a friend. But your brother does that? You really only got two options: You get over it, or…"

Rod trailed off, and Dean nodded, gave him a flicker of smile before he finished his sentence for him.

"You get over it."

* * *

Somewhere along the line Dean's shoelace had come untied and Sam pointed silently to it as he came into the waiting room. 

"What'd he say?"

"I think Sean's looking for his brother." Dean toed up on the chair beside him and tied the lace.

"Not about the Cantems, you dick. What'd he say about your shoulder?"

Dean glanced up at him irritably. "What? I dunno. He said it's fine. See? Two hands." He tugged the lace tight and straightened, held up both hands for Sam to see.

"You tell him about your fingers?"

"Nope."

Sam threw his hands in the air.

"I don't believe you. I just…" He bit his lip, gave Dean a few tight shakes of his head and Dean heard resignation lap up against the anger. "Okay, what else?"

Dean cocked his head, the corners of his mouth twitching down. "He said you were an asshole for shooting me."

"He _what?_ "

"Well, he didn't _say_ it exactly, but the implication was there. It was definitely _implied._"

"You _told _him?"

Dean patted the air in front of him with both hands, the sparkle in his eye belying his irritation. "Calm down, Tinkerbell. I said it was a hunting accident."

"And he bought that?"

"As opposed to _My brother got himself possessed by a demon chick and shot me off a pier in Duluth?_ Yeah, he bought it."

Sam crossed his arms, looked like he might explode. Dean had to stop himself from taking an instinctive step back. _Don't laugh either. You laugh right now and he'll take out the entire block. _After a stare that could cut diamonds, Sam was out the clinic door into the parking lot. The door flipped back closed like a clap of thunder, the doorframe rattling. Kelly the receptionist looked up with a start.

"Oh, my, is he alright?"

She was cute, in a hair-tied-back-and-glasses kinda way. More Sam's type than his but…hell, who was he kidding? He didn't have a type. Dean twisted his top lip as he crossed to the reception counter.

"Oh, yeah. He's fine. More to the point, how're _you?_"

"I'm good. How did you want to pay?"

She blushed, and Dean widened the smile as he leant on the counter. He tugged his wallet out of his back pocket, gave her a good three seconds of eye contact before he said, "How do you want me to pay, Kelly?"

It was hard and fast and direct, and she floundered like sea bass on a deck.

"Cash or credit's fine." She couldn't look at him.

Dean tapped the counter with his card. He'd be willing to lay a substantial chunk of his stolen credit on the fact that she was a banshee in the sack. Those quiet ones. It was _always_ the quiet ones. _You win some, you lose some._

"Credit it is."

* * *

He was stepping off the curb behind Sam in the darkened parking lot when it hit him. The clinic porch lights fritzed, then a blast of freezing air and his chest seized. He saw his breath, frosty, as he exhaled sharply. 

_Release him._

It was a skewer through the temple and then he was blinking up at Sam's face. There was concern there. Relief. And something else. Was that _glee?_ Dean's teeth chattered.

"Dude, you are a wreck. You just totally passed out."

He elbowed up, Sam's palm against his shoulder blade.

"I think I just heard Cantem."

"Sure, blame it on the ghost. McFaintyPants."

"Sam," he growled. Dean rolled up onto his knees, let Sam pull him up by the sleeve of his jacket.

"You okay?" Sam looked around. "I didn't hear anything, man. I mean, I saw the lights and yeah, cold, but I didn't hear anything. What'd he say?"

"He said we have to find his brother. That's what he said."

They both jumped as the Impala's engine roared to life beside them. Dean dipped a hand into his jacket pocket, pulled out the car keys and jingled them at Sam.

"McFaintyPants, huh? Thank you very much."

* * *

It wasn't until they were pulling up at the garage on Eighth that Dean realized Kelly hadn't been as shy as he thought. On the bottom of his credit card slip, she'd neatly penned her full name and cell number. _Knew it. Banshee_. He chuckled, brought his fist to his lips when the laugh got away from him. He hacked off a round of violent coughs, cracked the door and spat a textured hunk onto the sidewalk. Sam swallowed hard, screwed up his nose as he exited the car. 

"Dude, you're gonna make me puke." He pulled the shotgun out of the trunk and handed it to Dean. "You want a hand or you wanna be alone with your new ghosty friend?"

Dean gave him a sarcastic smile as he took the shotgun. "I got it, asshole."

Sam followed him anyway. Dean threw an irritated look over his shoulder, and Sam said, "Just in case. You know, you might faint again."

"Laugh it up, bitch. Just remember who's holding the shotgun." He passed his palm across his forehead, wiped it on his jeans. _I'm sweating. It's fucking 45 degrees and I'm sweating. If I was a horse, I'd put this shotgun in my mouth._

Dean rounded the corner behind the garage building and his stomach dropped away through his boots. He swung the shotgun up smoothly, hand sliding down the barrel.

"Sam!" Dean ratched the weapon, the back of his neck prickling.

Twenty feet away, standing near the back entrance to the office, was Sean Cantem. Death hadn't been kind to the man. He looked thinner, paler than the pictures Dean had seen in the newspaper clippings. The inky mass against the front of his shirt was black in the moonlight. Dean heard Sam's footsteps behind him and took a step forward. The figure reached out a hand towards Dean. He was holding something. Dean edged closer.

"Sean?"

Behind him, Sam's voice. "Dean, what?"

Dean jutted the end of the shotgun at Cantem. "Right there. You see him?"

"No, man. See what?"

"Sean Cantem, he's right there. Holy fuck, you don't see him?"

Sam threw his hands wide. "Dean." He sounded helpless. Confused.

Sean opened his mouth and a dark crimson flood spilled from his lips and cascaded from his chin, pooled thickly on the concrete near his pale feet. Dean grimaced down the barrel of the shotgun, looked back to his outstretched hand.

It was a photo. He inched forward again, hesitated, then dropped the end of the shotgun, made a grab for the photo. The second his fingers closed on it he was dropping the shotgun, explosions of pain behind his temple.

* * *

_Release him. _

"There you go. Hey," Sam said as Dean worked his eyes open.

"National park," he slurred, and Sam shook him a little.

"What? Dean, you with me?"

"Yeah. He had a photo. He's in the national park. There's a tree with a red marker on it. It's a blue car. He's in a blue car and it's all overgrown. You can't see it from the air. S'why the search choppers missed it." He rolled and coughed into his hand, made no move to get up.

"Dude, you alright?"

Dean shook his head. "No man, this guy's giving me a headache and I feel like shit."

Sam tugged on his collar. "Okay, get up. We're goin' back to the motel. We can finish this up tomorrow."

They drove in silence, Dean dozing in the passenger seat until Sam said, "So why you think I can't see this guy?"

Dean sniffed, opened one eye. "I dunno."

"You think it's 'cause you're sick?"

"I dunno."

"Or maybe it's 'cause you guys have something in common."

"What's that?"

Sam didn't say anything, gripped the steering wheel tighter and stared at the windshield. Dean lifted his head off the backrest, rubbed his eyes. He sighed.

"You think this is about Duluth?"

"Gee, Dean, I don't know. Seems like a bit of a coincidence. This guy's little brother flips out and shoots him, all of a sudden you're best friends."

Dean snorted off a laugh, had to wipe a finger across his nose. "Yeah, best friends in an evil crack my skull in half kinda way. He's a real pal." He narrowed his eyes at Sam. "Dude, don't snap that steering wheel. What are you so angry about?"

"You're always joking around about this shit. I nearly killed you that night, Dean. Hell, Jo too. And that guy, Wandell…" he trailed off, shook his head.

It made Dean grimace. He didn't want Sam thinking about Wandell. "How many times I gotta say it, Sam – it wasn't you."

Sam ran a hand through his hair, his face twitching with a thousand self recriminations. Dean raked a hand down his face.

"Look, Sam, you did a lot of crazy shit that week, I'm not gonna argue with you on that. You can cry and beat yourself up about it as much as you like. And yeah, Wandell's still dead and that is five kinds of unfair. But Meg's dusted. You're okay. I'm okay. Jo's okay. And at the end of the day, that means I was three for three when the bell went off. S'all I really care about."

Dean leaned back against the backrest, watched Sam for a while through half-closed eyes. _Why's Sean Cantem talking to me and not you? 'Cause he knows I coulda lived with one outta three, if I had to. You stupid, dumb-ass bitch._

* * *

"Dude, what are you doing?" 

Sam slapped at Dean's boots as he passed the motel couch. Dean was sprawled upside down on the cushion, legs dangling over the backrest. He sniffed wetly, eyes on the inverted TV screen.

"I'm tryin' to move this shit around so I can breathe."

He coughed and his chest percolated like roadhouse coffee. Sam grimaced in sympathy.

"You sound terrible."

"Yeah, but when I do this?" Dean swung around and sat up suddenly. He sniffed deeply, exhaled out through his mouth. "I get, like a nanosecond of clarity in my left nostril."

He returned to the upside down position.

"You should go to bed."

Dean brought his watch up to his face. "It's like, seven o'clock."

"You're a mess, dude. Look, I'm gonna go for another scope past the garage, see if I can find anything else. You go to bed. In the morning, I'll head out and grab us some maps of the national park, we can start looking for this Nathan guy. Deal?"

Dean didn't argue.

"Hey," Dean threw the keys to the Impala blindly over the back of the couch and Sam didn't make a move to catch them. They bounced off the carpet and Sam stepped over them on the way to the door.

"It's three blocks. I'll walk. Do me a favor and be asleep by the time I get back, huh?"

Dean lay there inverted for a while after Sam had gone, mustering the required resources for a dismount. Then he swung his legs round and flipped off the couch with a groan. Every fiber of his being was calling to the lumpy, poorly maintained mattress on the cheap motel bed. He crossed to the window and opened the curtain, checked the parking lot. Still no spaces. He opened the door and padded along the porch far enough to catch sight of the Impala out on the street curb. He felt a tug of uneasiness leaving her there.

"I'm sorry, baby," he muttered under his breath.

Inside he turned over some motel stationery and scrawled a note. _T, Please make sure I'm standing before you leave. Thanks, Me._ He thought for second, underlined the pertinent points, and left a reminder in the corner of the page about the car. In the bathroom he brushed his carpeted teeth and downed a small handful of the antibiotics and Tylenol. He stooped with some difficulty and retrieved the keys from the floor, dropped them next to the note on the table. As an afterthought, he picked up the pen and drew a fairy next to the T. It ended up looking more like a mosquito, and a bad one at that, but he figured Sam would get the point.

He crawled onto the bed, face planted into the pillow. He thought about taking his boots off, maybe losing his jeans and getting under the bedspread. But that was as far as he got.

* * *

He woke to the crumpled note bouncing off his forehead. 

"Hey. Up."

Dean groaned.

"Don't get pissy at me – you left the note, man. Get up."

Dean's mind clicked through the morning mental checklist. _Name… town…Sam…_ _Impala…ho, Impala's on the **s**__**treet. **_

"You bring the car in?"

"No, you did."

"No, I didn't." Dean cracked an eye open, lifted his face out of the pillow.

"Dean, it wasn't on the street when I came in last night. You must have brought it in." Sam crossed to the window and shifted the curtain with a finger, gazed out at the lot. "Seriously, man, where'd you leave it?"

There was no faster or more effective way of getting Dean upright in less than a second flat. He came across the motel room floor looking feverish, slightly unbalanced and completely capable of snapping Sam's neck like a twig. He pointed a finger at the curtains.

"If you're fuckin' around I'm gonna put you through that window."

Sam stepped back three paces, hands up in surrender.

"What, you think I've got a death wish?"

Dean threw open the motel door and Sam snagged the laptop off the table, made sure he was in the bathroom with the door safely locked when Dean came back into the room, now certain that the Impala was gone.

* * *

"I need to piss." 

Sam stopped on the trail, turned around.

"Again? What, are you channeling Sea Biscuit?"

"Plenty of fluids, Sam. Doctor's orders." He jogged up ahead on the soft peat of the trail and darted into the trees. "I swear to God, if that dead guy has so much as scratched a hubcab I'm gonna kill him. Again. I'm gonna kill him again. Even more than the first time. That chest wound? A tickle. I'm gonna salt his ass to back to the fucking Stone Age."

He hopped a little, copped a bit of sprayback off some broad leaf botany.

Back on the track, Sam called, "We should be right on it. I can't see anything. How accurate is this GPS thing?"

Dean shrugged, targeted a bug crawling up the tree trunk. "I dunno. I think, like a hundred feet or something." He looked around. "She's close, man. I can smell her."

"You can smell snot, Dean." Sam studied the GPS unit. "That's the only thing you can possibly be smelling right now"

"Check the trees for markers. There was a red – Holy shit."

Dean jumped, nearly pissed on his boots. In the heavy undergrowth ahead of him, Sean Cantem was calmly watching him urinate on a tree. He turned a little instinctively. _Dude, do you mind?_

Cantem didn't seem to. He stood there, grey and incongruous and stark against the undergrowth. Then he pointed back into the twisting forest. Dean caught a glimmer in the greenery, a familiar black sheen.

He fumbled with the buttons on his fly, fingers suddenly freezing, breath clouding in front of his lips.

"Sam!" He took off through the undergrowth like a gazelle, could hear Sam crashing through the fernery behind him, calling his name.

A minute later Sam was colliding heavily into Dean's back. They stood there, side by side, catching their breath and staring incredulously at the Impala.

"What the fuck…?" Sam glanced at Dean's ashen face. "How'd he get her in here?"

The Impala was untouched, pristine, and smack bang in middle of an unruly thicket. Sam turned a circle, trying to get a lock on a break in the trees she might fit through. He shook his head.

"How the…?"

But Dean wasn't listening to him. He was stumbling past the Impala's fender towards the trees on the far side.

"Dean?"

Sam took a few hesitant steps after him, broke into a run when his brother buckled out of nowhere and went down in the undergrowth.

* * *

_Release him._

_You too, right Sean? You mean release you, too. 'Cause he's gone, man. The minute he pulled the trigger. _

Dean came to feeling clammy, hot and cold at the same time. Knowing he must be the latter, because his breath was frosting at his lips and he was shivering. Sam was shaking him.

"Dean. Look at me. Hey. You okay?" No glee this time. Just an edgy panic. _Third time's a charm. Fucking worrywart. _

"Where is he?" Dean lifted his head.

"Where's who?"

"Nathan. He's here. There's a blue car."

"Where?"

"Here!" Dean struggled up, and Sam helped him to his feet.

"Dude, you're freezing. You're like ice."

Dean slapped Sam's fluttering hands away from his arm, stalked an unsteady circle around the thicket.

Sam followed him, scanning the trees. "I don't see anything."

Dean pointed into the undergrowth. "There. Over here." He ducked through the trees, branches snapping and cracking beneath his boots.

Six years of the elements had done neither the car, nor Nathan, any cosmetic favors. Dean peered in at the mess, the hand gun gripped by what was left of Nathan's hand in what was left of his lap. Dean grimaced. He looked up over the top of the car into the undergrowth, caught sight of Sean again a ways back beside a tree, the faded red cross of a paint marker on its trunk. His grey face was impassive, inscrutable.

_Okay, we got him, Sean. _

Dean curled his freezing fingers, folded them beneath his armpits, blew out a visible breath. He turned to Sam.

"Okay, how the fuck we gonna explain this to Park Services?"

The cold began to pull away from him, like a shroud being lifted. When Dean looked back over his shoulder, Sean was gone.

* * *

In the end, they cleaned out the Impala's trunk, wiped her down, and called in an anonymous tip from a payphone. It took a few trips in and out and cost them a rental for the morning, but the upshot was that park services had to worry about how to get the Impala, and Nathan, out of the reserve. 

Later that night, it was a simple case of B&E, a busted-up computer, a blazing filing cabinet and a pair of bolt cutters to get the Impala back from the local impound. As they headed out of town, Sam shook his head.

"I still can't believe Sean Cantem spent six years trying to get the guy who killed him a decent burial. I mean, the guy shot him in the chest."

Dean didn't say anything. He thought about Nathan out there all those years, lost and alone, decomposing in that car. He thought about that week after West Texas, driving and not sleeping, the days blurring into one heavy mass in the pit of his stomach. And then Cold Oak. He understood about the needing to have someone found. For better or for worse. He glanced at Sam. _That's the thing you don't get about what happened in Duluth, little brother. You wanna shoot me? Fine? Smack me round a bit? Okay. Stick your thumb clean through the back of my shoulder blade? I'll suck it up. _

_But missing? The not knowing where or how or why?_

_Don't do that, man. Not ever again. _

He shrugged, gave Sam a smile.

"You oughta untwist your own boxers there, pal. 'Fore you start pickin' on Sean Cantem."

"What do you mean?"

Dean scratched his jaw. 'What happened in Duluth? And back at Bobby's? You gotta let it go, man. It's killing you." _Release me. _He barked off a laugh. "Hell, it's killing me _listening_ to it kill you. I meant what I said, Sam. It doesn't matter. It never mattered."

Sam was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke his voice was soft. Dean almost missed it.

"I nearly killed my brother. How can I just forget about that?"

_Release me._

Dean flicked his eyes from the road to Sam, back again. He shook his head, gave him a lop-sided smile.

_Okay, then. Don't unpack those bags, Sammy. But it's time to change trains. Gotta little guilt trip of my own for ya._

"Cause he's your brother," Dean said, "and he's asking you to."

* * *

Thanks for reading :-) Pdragon76 


End file.
